Here Comes Everyone

Polyvinyl; 2004

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Aloha's spacey, transient improvisational post-rock stood out in an increasingly bloated genre, so it was a slight surprise when the band followed the expansive, jazz-influenced experimentation of its 2001 debut, That's Your Fire, by laying a thick anthemic prog veneer over 2002's Sugar. Now on Here Comes Everyone, Aloha make a another shift, curbing their penchant for improvisatory exploration and instead embracing simple rock arrangements and discernible pop hooks. Given Aloha's frequently shifting roster (multi-percussionist T.J. Lipple joined the band in 2003 and helped produce this album) and this series of sonic changes, the only constant in their career is the music press' obsession with the band's vibraphone-- which garners more ink than any individual member of the group.

The band's turn to more traditional pop structures may limit its scope but it enhances the immediate power of their songs. Perhaps most notably, it also makes lead vocalist Tony Cavallario a more commanding presence, and he counterbalances his band's more confining compositional model with some of his most evocative vocal melodies and lyrics to date. "You've Escaped" is grounded by a simple acoustic guitar progression, with dulcet percussive flourishes and piano figures relegated to a purely textural role. Here, as well as on spare piano-driven ballads such as "Setting Up Shop" and "Perry Como Gold", Aloha's engine room comes across as a competent but submissive backing band indulging Cavallario's singer/songwriter leanings.

Despite the album's often rigid arrangements, most of its songs possess an ephemeral weightlessness. "Water Your Hands" combines a swirling melange of marimba, mellotron, and electronic textures with a sublime Sufjan Stevens-esque group chorus, and is one of the album's strongest moments. Cavallario's depiction of life on the road is spot-on: The song's eerie roadside memorials and vacant Roy Rogers rest stops serve as a literal manifestation of the album's general state of limbo. The bright but restrained marimba textures of "Summer Away" underscore the song's conflicted nostalgia for the innocence of childhood, while the gentle waltz "Be Near"-- soaked in ambient synth strings and, yes, vibraphone-- invokes the comforting, grounding familiarity of The Beatles, Beach Boys, and Neil Young while retaining a bittersweet fragility.

Aloha's music is more contained than ever before, but their conscious restraint too often stifles the improvisatory energy that has defined their best work. But Aloha's biggest strength is still their tendency toward compositional openness and improvisation, and the album's few concessions to their earlier material tend to overshadow the weaker, more one-dimensional songs cluttered throughout the album. Cale Parks' relentlessly shifting post-rock drumming in "All the Wars" is buoyed by a repetitive guitar figure and angelic vocal harmonies, and sprawling closer "Goodbye to the Factory" recalls Sugar's epic scope, concluding the album on an impressive high note.